OKCupid Resurrects “Crazy Blind Date” Service Because You Should Be On A Date Right Now

Ready for a true story, kids? Once upon a time, a young woman went on the Internet and set up a time and place to meet a total stranger, without ever seeing his face, for just one drink. They met, they drank, they left and that was that. It was five years ago and the online service was called Crazy Blind Date. It died off and became what we know as OKCupid. Now it’s resurrection time.

Here’s the premise of Crazy Blind Date, at least the way it used to work, according to that woman who yes, fine, is me: Using the power of the Internets and various algorithms, you get matched up with members of whichever sex you’re interested in dating who are within age ranges you specify.

Without ever seeing photos of each other, you set up a mutually agreeable date, time and place, and agree to have at least one drink or coffee. No pressure, and you leave after 20 minutes.

That dating model kinda petered out, perhaps because there weren’t enough users signed up for such craaaazy blind dates. But according to Jeff Bercovici of Forbes, the co-founder of OKCupid is ready to roll again with an updated Crazy Blind Date app.

The service launched today and is fresh and new after Yagan says the powers that be at OKC listened to the one million users complain about their “pain points.” The major one? The hassle of spending lots of time noodling around on the site, sending messages back and forth and then never planning an actual date.

If you cut out the B.S. — meaning pictures and an overload of information — it could be more tempting to just say yeah, why not, I’ll meet a new person for 20 minutes instead of staring at my phone and waiting for that guy I met last week to finally ask me out again. Hypothetically!

Such a set-up should be easy, as Yagan says, with those parameters“there is no excuse. You should go on a date every night.”

One potential downside we can see is this new practice of purchasing “kudos” on the app after a date. It gives your date a sort of digital currency, even if you don’t want to see them again someone else might like them and so you should show your appreciation by spending money…?

If you’re stingy with your kudos (which, admittedly, I would be) the algorithm turns against you and morphs into your friend that’s sick of hearing you complain about being single but then never actually try to meet someone new.

To encourage OKCupid users to jump on the Crazy Blind Date wagon, users of the site will see that all photos have been temporarily wiped from the site and the app, calling it “Love Is Blind Day.”

Yagan tells Bercovici that we just need some of our choices taken away so we can stop wasting time perusing profiles for what he says is an average of 20 minutes, and just get out there and do something, already.

“The idea is that for those 20 minutes, you should just be on a date,” he says.